


Canon-Compliant DeanCas

by iamindeeddistressed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon Compliant, Castiel and Crowley Work Together (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Communication Breakdown is not on the mixtape bc Dean is not self-aware, Dean Winchester Has Self-Esteem Issues, Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx Mixtape, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, Episode: s12e03 The Foundry, Episode: s12e09 First Blood, Episode: s12e19 The Future, Episode: s12e19 The Future - Mixtape Scene, Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Episode: s13e06 Tombstone, First Kiss, First Time, Former Prostitute Dean Winchester, Friends With Benefits, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Jealous Castiel (Supernatural), Lack of Communication, M/M, Minor Castiel/Crowley (Supernatural), Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Repressed Bisexual Dean Winchester, Sad, Self-Hating Dean Winchester, Suicidal Dean Winchester, Traumatized Dean Winchester, Unrequited Crowley (Supernatural)/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28989450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamindeeddistressed/pseuds/iamindeeddistressed
Summary: What started as a collection of drabbles exploring the idea that Dean and Cas had a sexual relationship prior to 15x18. Now has a plot of its own. Very angsty due to canon-compliance.Not every chapter is explicit; they are tagged individually. Each chapter is around 2k words.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 49
Kudos: 124





	1. s05e03 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean won't let Castiel die a virgin, but then again, maybe he should have left well enough alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter is sad + explicit.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so hard,” Dean admits as they exit the brothel. “More than a long time. Years.” The thought starts to bring him down as he moves to the driver’s side door. With Sam gone, the apocalypse beginning, and Cas—

Dean catches sight of a small smile on Cas’s face as he opens the door and disappears into the Impala. Had he ever even seen Cas smile before? Really smile?

 _And Cas about to die,_ the thought catches up to him.

Dean gets into the car, door thumping closed beside him. On the other side of the bench seat is Cas, still smiling a small, dopey smile. Still happy just to be there. It wasn’t fair.

Dean starts the car. They don’t make it very far, just a few more blocks and then he’s turning down a dark alleyway and putting Baby in park. Cas looks at him curiously.

“Cas—“ Dean wants to say that no amount of information is worth Cas’s life, but he knows Cas won’t listen. He knows that the mission still comes, always will come, first with Cas. He knows Cas has a faith that he will never share. “Do you trust me?” he ends up asking.

Cas squints vaguely. “Of course I do.”

“Okay.” Dean nods, staring away from Cas, straight out the windshield, just for a moment. Just to get himself together.It’s been years. Thelma and Louise. “Listen, Cas.” He looks back over to the passenger side. “I’ll do you this favor,” he says, tasting the lie in it, swallowing it down, “but there are ground rules. Rule one: not a word about it, d’you hear? Not to anyone, not to Sam, not even to me, got it?”

Cas just stares. He hasn’t figured it out yet. Dean sighs, removes the keys from the ignition. “What favor?” Cas asks finally.

“C’mon.” Dean opens the door. “Backseat.”

The night air is crisp as Dean exits the car. It wouldn’t be his first night in a back alley. There had also been truck stops, motel parking lots, backroads, all ending with crumpled bills stuffed into his back pocket. This was no different. It didn’t change anything.

“Why are we in the backseat?” Cas asks as he sits down beside him, and Dean wonders how he ever became friends with someone so dense.

“Ground rule two,” says Dean, taking his overshirt off. “You want me to stop, just say so, okay? I’ll stop. No big deal.”

“Dean, what— are—“ Cas shuts up as Dean leans over him.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you die a virgin, dumbass.”

Cas’s eyes widen. He’s quiet, except for some shaky breathing. Dean’s afraid to stop, afraid to keep going. But Cas doesn’t tell him _no_ , doesn’t say _stop_ , so Dean figures he’s committed now. He kisses Cas’s cheek, then trails the kisses downward to his jawline, to his neck. Cas’s head tilts back, just slightly, giving Dean more access, and so Dean opens his mouth wider, licks Cas’s neck, feels the roughness of it against his tongue.

Dean has another rule for situations like this one, one he’s already broken and isn’t going to mention. The rule is _no kissing._ It’s a good rule, for roadhouse bathrooms and truck cabs, for guys who are already horny and who have cash in hand. But for Cas— for Cas, who’s a virgin, for Cas, who probably isn’t even into him, for Cas, who is a freaking angel of the Lord— Cas deserves foreplay. _No kissing on the mouth,_ Dean amends, silently, to himself. Dean pulls back, looks Cas in the eye. He looks confused, scared. Not far off from where he was in the brothel. God, he’s probably hating this. The hell was Dean doing.

“You okay, Cas?” he asks warily.

“I think so.” Cas’s eyes are red. He looks like a deer in headlights.

Dean shakes his head. “You’re wigged, man. We should stop.” _Please let’s not stop._

“No,” Cas says quickly. It makes something catch in Dean’s heart.

“You sure you’re good?”

Cas nods, managing to look a little less freaked. “Yes.”

Dean nods in return. He settles back on the seat and works on Cas’s tie, pulling it through its collar easily, then he starts on the shirt buttons. Cas’s neck is so beautiful.

“Dean—“

“—Don’t talk, Cas.” _Don’t make this anything other than what it is._ “Unless you need something. We’ll call that rule three.”

Dean’s hands are shaking. God, what’s wrong with him. He’s not the virgin here. He gets Cas’s shirt unbuttoned, and leans down to kiss his chest. It’s pale, with just a dusting of dark hair between the nipples. Dean brushes a hand through the hair, then kisses a nipple, pink and hard with cold, and above him there’s a ratchet in Cas’s breathing. _Hm._ Dean licks at it, sucks it gently. Cas gasps quietly above him. Dean has a hand on Cas’s side, and he fondles it gently, letting his hand wander to Cas’s back, exploring his bare skin and supporting him gently; then, Dean expands his kiss radius downward, toward Cas’s navel. He licks into it, like some two-dollar whore. _God._ He can feel Cas’s eyes on him, just some dirty hunter in worn flannel and old jeans, and damn, after ‘Chastity’ in her white lingerie, he’d better make this good. He breaks away, checking in on Cas’s expression once more. There’s something different in Cas’s gaze this time; he still looks scared, a bit confused. But there’s something else as well, something Dean’s never seen there before: arousal. _Hell._

“Fuck, Cas.” Dean moves back up to Cas’s face before he knows what he’s doing. He stops himself just above Cas’s lips, takes a steadying breath. Controls himself.

“Can I talk now?” Cas asks. He reaches a hand up to touch Dean’s shoulder lightly.

“Please don’t.” _Please._

Cas stares at him instead, eyes wide and almost black in the darkness. Cas’s lips are only inches away. Dean redirects his attention, back down to the other side of Cas’s neck this time, and Cas gasps above him. Dean moans despite himself, lips closed, humming against Cas’s neck. He sways slightly as he kneels on the seat, wishing he had something to rub against. Cas’s hand grips Dean’s shirt. Dean drops a hand down to Cas’s crotch, fumbling over the cold belt buckle and cheap polyester to an unmistakable bulge, hard under his hand, and Cas groans for real this time. _Fuck._ Dean gropes him softly, over the pants, trying to elicit that sound again, but Cas only gasps this time, then whispers, “Dean.” _Fuck._

Dean raises his head again, resting his forehead against Cas’s, sharing breath. He rubs Cas’s groin gently. Cas’s eyes are closed now, his breath shallow.

“You still good, Cas?”

“Dean.”

Dean smiles despite himself. “I asked if this is okay, buddy.”

And then a hand on his neck is pulling him against Cas’s open mouth. Dean hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected Cas’s hands on him, holding him close, answering something within him that he doesn’t want to look at or acknowledge, but of course Cas would see it, would reach into him and destroy him at the slightest sign of weakness. Cas lips are moving against his, inexpertly, wetly, hungrily, and who is Dean, to pull away? Dean moans despite himself, kissing into Cas, leaning into Cas, letting Cas’s hands tell him where to go, letting Cas’s tongue lick into him, going for as long as Cas wants, doing his best to ignore the voice in his head that wants him to pull away, to say _Don’t get the wrong idea, Cas._ It feels good. It’s only a kiss. And Cas won’t be here tomorrow anyway.

“Cas,” Dean finds himself whispering mindlessly. “Cas, Cas.” _Fuck Raphael,_ Dean wants to say. _Fuck God. Stay here. Stay with me._

“Dean,” Cas whines, gripping him tightly. “Please.”

 _Right,_ Dean remembers suddenly. Cas wasn’t doing this for him, Cas wasn’t feeling anything for him. He was supposed to be doing Cas a favor, and yet Cas’s arousal was bucking forward into nothing but air. Which made Dean less than a two-dollar whore.

“I got you,” Dean whispers. “Relax, buddy. I got you.” He pulls back, takes in briefly the sight of Cas, lips pink, eyes desperate, bare chest heaving, and feels it chip away at something within himself. Then he goes to work, unbuckling Cas’s belt, undoing his pants, pulling them down, Cas clinging to him, whimpering. “I got you, Cas,” Dean keeps repeating. This is what they’re here for, after all.

He takes Cas into his mouth without hesitation, as if it’s just another job. Just another twenty bucks for burgers and gas. He closes his eyes, focuses on the work. He tells himself he’s okay. But he knows now, knows he’ll always be haunted by the feel of Cas’s lips against his, Cas’s tongue searching his own out. Even as Cas moans with pleasure above him, tears are forming in Dean’s eyes. _Don’t go,_ he thinks. _Not now you’ve ruined me._

By the time he’s done his eyes are dry. He asks Cas for a minute anyway, goes into the cold air and leans against his Baby, closes his eyes. He feels like a jackass.

“Dean?” Cas is fully dressed, so it must be a few minutes later. He’d lost himself.

“Yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

Dean clears his throat, reaches into his pocket for the keys. “‘Course I am.”

“Thank you for—“

“—What’d I say, Cas?” Dean cuts him off harshly. “Not a word.”

Cas is quiet on the other side of the car, hands in pockets. “Of course not, Dean.” Dean stares off into space as the passenger side door thuds closed. _Hell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas's pov next! ;o Should have only 3/4 of the emotional issues that Dean has.


	2. s05e03 (Cas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean does Cas a "favor" on his last night on Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second verse, same as the first.
> 
> I promise multiple pov's of the same scene aren't going to be a ~thing~ in this fic, but the boys' experiences were so disparate here I had to do it.
> 
> This one, like the first, is sad + explicit (though a little less sad than Dean's imo)

Dean is laughing in the street, harder than he has in a long time, he says, and even though Cas doesn’t understand what he did to cause it, he feels the bubbles of joy it causes in himself, like little particles of grace lifting within him. Dean claps him on the back and the joy escapes onto Castiel’s face in the form of a smile. It’s such a rare thing, to make Dean Winchester laugh. Cas gets in the car and Dean follows, starting it up and beginning the unnecessarily long drive back to their safe house.

Only a few minutes later, Dean is turning into a dark alleyway. It’s not on the path to the house, at least not as the angel flies, so Cas watches curiously as Dean parks the vehicle and looks over at him as if he has something to say.

“Cas,” Dean starts, and there’s something strange about his tone, something… cautious, maybe? “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay.” Dean nods and stares out the windshield, as if thinking something over. Cas hopes he isn’t going to try to talk him out of speaking to Raphael. “Listen, Cas,” Dean continues. “I’ll do you this favor, but there are ground rules.” Favor? Ground rules? “Rule one: not a word about it, d’you hear? Not to anyone, not to Sam, not even to me, got it?”

What on earth could Dean be talking about, that he needs to be sworn to secrecy? “What favor?” Cas asks, when Dean doesn’t explain further.

Dean rolls his eyes at him. “C’mon,” he says, opening the door. “Backseat.”

And so Cas follows. What else is he to do?

Once they are both settled in the backseat, Dean stares at Cas seriously, and begins removing his overshirt.

“Ground rule two,” he says, and something in his voice travels through Cas’s vessel, down to his navel. “You want me to stop, just say so, okay? I’ll stop. No big deal.”

Cas can feel his heart rate increasing. It’s as if his vessel has figured something out before his mind can catch up. “Dean, what—“ he begins to ask, but Dean has a knee on the seat between them and is lifting up and forward, “are—“ Dean’s face is dangerously close and breathtakingly beautiful and Cas can’t finish the question.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you die a virgin, dumbass,” says Dean, only inches away.

Oh.

A favor.

_That_ favor.

Dean Winchester?

_That_ Dean Winchester?

Cas wants to ask a question, something like _why?_ or _how?_ or _you?_ , but he can’t seem to speak. Dean is leaning over him, and there’s a soft brush of skin on his cheek and with a jolt Cas realizes it’s Dean’s _lips_.

He can’t breathe. He can’t disturb the moment. It feels as if he’s suddenly surrounded by glass, and if he so much as speaks, it’ll break.

Dean’s lips pull away and there’s a small patch of cold on Cas’s cheek where a bit of saliva was left behind. It grows colder as Dean breathes in, the air rushing over Cas’s skin and into Dean’s lungs, and Cas closes his eyes. He’s in shock. The lips— _Dean’s_ lips—touch him again, on the jaw this time, a couple of times. Cas is tempted to pause time itself, but there’s that glass surrounding him; he can’t _do_ anything. He sits rigidly, a wooden marionette in a shop of glassworks, and then he can feel the scratch of a stubbled cheek on his jaw as Dean’s lips wander even lower, asking a question with their trajectory, and Cas moves, for the first time in what feels like a century, in answer: he tilts his head back, allowing Dean access to his throat, feeling delightfully vulnerable, grace bubbling with sensation, and then the lips are touching him there, and then, a moment later, the warmth and wet of a _tongue_ ….

Cas is done for.

Suddenly the warmth disappears, leaving only cold in its wake; Dean’s looking him up and down. “You okay, Cas?” he asks. What a question. He’s looking at Cas like he’s crazy. Maybe he is. Certainly he is. Does he really have to explain the concept of sacrilege to Dean Winchester? The memory of Dean’s touch is thudding around in Cas’s grace, driving him mad. Why did it _stop?_ He feels mad. Wild, afraid, ecstatic. Fragile. Dean is looking at him. Is he _okay._

“I think so,” Cas manages to say.

Dean shakes his head at him. _No._ “You’re wigged, man. We should stop.”

“No,” Cas protests. _No, no. Don’t break the glass. I’ll be good. I’ll do whatever you want._

“You sure you’re good?” Dean asks doubtfully.

“Yes.” Cas does his best to look sure, experienced, sane. As if his grace isn’t on fire. _Just please touch me again,_ he thinks. _Please._

This satisfies Dean somehow, and he reaches for Cas’s neck, takes ahold of his tie. Cas remembers he’s supposed to breathe.

“Dean—“

“—No talking, Cas,” Dean cuts him off, “unless you need something. We’ll call that rule three.”

So many rules now. And why no talking? Cas supposes it would make Dean uncomfortable. _Because he doesn’t want to do this,_ Cas realizes suddenly. It’s a favor. Just a favor. He isn’t enjoying it. The thought dampens Cas’s mood significantly, but then Dean’s hand is on his bare chest, brushing through the hair there and wandering down low to grip his side and Cas doesn’t care. He will accept all of Dean’s conditions, no matter how damaging. No matter how difficult. Cas drops his head back, focuses on the feeling of Dean’s hand, and is surprised by a warm sensation on his right nipple. His breathing catches. It feels _good_. Dean kisses him there again, and Cas gasps at the feeling, not just in his nipple, but through his stomach and down to his groin. He hadn’t known such a feeling was possible— _how_ was it possible? Dean’s lips find their way down Cas’s chest, and Cas watches him, beautiful, confident, and human, as he kneels over him, kissing his stomach and his navel and then, perhaps self-conscious, looking back up. Dean’s expression changes as he meets Cas’s eyes, and he climbs back up the seat.

“Fuck, Cas,” he breathes, air hitting Cas’s lips, his face close to Cas’s once again.

And didn’t that count as talking? And what did it mean?

“Can I talk now?” Cas asks, desperately confused. He wants to ask what Dean is thinking, if he feels the way Cas does, too. If he feels even a modicum of _this_ , whatever it is.

“Please don’t,” Dean responds. The _please_ gets to him, such an uncharacteristic word to hear, whispered softly through Dean Winchester’s lips. Cas can only obey it, and so he stays quiet and just watches Dean, trying in vain to parse his expression. There’s something sad in it, and something Cas hopes is arousal, but maybe— maybe that didn’t mean anything. Maybe that was natural, merely a physical reaction. Oh, why was this so hard. Dean’s eyes flit downward suggestively and Cas just wants to grab him, to flip them both and kiss him flat into the leather seat, but Dean has moved before Cas can start making any plans in earnest. Soon those soft lips are on his neck again, sending pleasure throughout his body; there’s a word he now realizes he’d never understood: _pleasure_ , radiating through him, tickling his skin, drawing a gasp, unbidden, up and through him, and then Dean is humming against his neck. Cas closes his eyes as Dean’s voice vibrates inside of him as if it were his own. This, at least, he understands. Frequencies were easier than all the rest of it. He lets it dance in his grace, passing through him like waves through the ocean.

He becomes so relaxed that he doesn’t understand what happens next. Suddenly he groans, his own sonic frequency overpowering Dean’s and bringing him swiftly back to reality. He is so distracted by this new feeling of pleasure that it actually takes him a second to realize where it is coming from— Dean Winchester’s hand, rubbing firmly against his groin. And, oh. The feeling. It’s impossible. It’s too much. But somehow it _keeps going,_ warmth and pleasure flowing through him from Dean’s touch and Cas can’t remember the rules anymore. He can’t remember who he is, or where he is, all he knows is Dean is the one causing this. “Dean,” he breathes aloud, needing to communicate _some_ thing. Needing _some_ one there to answer.

And Dean does, his forehead resting against Cas’s. Cas’s eyes are closed, but he can feel Dean’s breath against his lips, close yet again, so close. “I’m here. You still good, Cas?”

“Dean,” Cas moans. He’s forgotten how to speak other words. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say. It feels so _good_. Dean feels so good, gentle and confident and so damn _good_.

Dean’s voice is soft, kind. “I asked if this is okay, buddy.”

That word again. It’s not _okay._ That word is offensive in relation to this, but Cas’s can’t explain the absurdism of such a question right now; he’s lost any ability to do so, and Dean’s right there and this is so stupid, Dean’s right _there._ And then Dean’s body is in his hands, is pulled flush against him; there’s a gasp and Dean’s lips are open against his own, and Cas has never kissed anyone before, Cas has never taken what he’s wanted before, but it turns out it’s as easy as breathing, easy as holding Dean Winchester in your arms. The glass doesn’t break; it bends. It envelopes. Dean’s tongue pushes into Cas’s mouth as if it’s been waiting to do this all along, and Dean moans into him, a new frequency now, and Cas can feel it in his chest, and Cas feels something new, something he’s seen depicted a thousand times on Earth but never felt in a billion years in Heaven: _ecstasy_.

This is ecstasy: Cas pulls Dean close and Dean comes to him. Cas may have been cut off from Heaven, but he is powerful in this moment, because when he demands it, Dean comes to him, and Dean kisses him, and it’s insane, it’s madness, it’s impossible, it can’t be real, but if not then Cas isn’t interested in reality. They kiss and they kiss and they kiss until Cas is so lightheaded that he doesn’t even notice when they stop, but he feels Dean’s lips tickle against his cheek as he whispers his name, over and over, and he feels the heat in his groin, demanding attention and not receiving any for some time now, and he can barely speak, but he has to, because if someone doesn’t do something he’ll never be sane again. He’ll never be sane again either way.

“Dean,” Cas manages to beg. “Please.”

“I got you,” Dean answers, somehow understanding. “Relax, buddy. I got you.”

And then Dean is climbing off of him, hands fumbling at Cas’s belt buckle, then button, zipper, elastic. A process. A ritual. A delay. Cas has to lift his hips off the seat in order to get the pants and underwear down. Then, without warning, Dean’s mouth is on him, warm and wet and good, _God_ , so good. Dean lifts his head slowly upward, coating Cas’s cock in saliva, and then dives back down, erotically far, rubbing against him with his tongue, gagging for just a fraction of a second, then sucking back upwards again, covering the whole length of him twice before descending into a bobbing rhythm, and Cas practically collapses back into the seat in anticipation of a climax that he’s never felt before but instinctively knows won’t take long to arrive.

There’s more air than he’d expected— he’s breathing so quickly, gasping out of necessity. His vessel is tensing up rather than relaxing, and his grace is tense, too, high and tight, vibrating at an uncomfortable pace. It’s still _pleasurable_ , but somehow, despite that, it’s no longer _good_. There is too much frustration, anticipation, need. Cas gives in to it, flexes his hips, pushes into Dean just as Dean comes down on him, and—

The glass shatters.

But there isn’t pain; there is pleasure.

There isn’t tension; there is release.

It flows through him in waves as he clings desperately to the car, trying simultaneously not to destroy it while also desperately needing to grip something as hard as possible to anchor himself to reality. Cas’s grace is aflame, trying to escape through his hands and eyes, but he manages to wrangle it into harmless radio waves.His vessel is less easy to control, and Cas has already orgasmed into Dean’s mouth without warning by the time he’s able to function again. There isn’t time to be apologetic about it— Dean doesn’t seem to mind at all, swallowing everything easily and patting Cas jovially on the thigh a moment later.

“You’re a real boy now, eh, Pinocchio?” Dean asks with a smile.

Cas can only pant and stare. He supposes he’s allowed to talk again, but he can’t gather his thoughts before Dean’s patted him again.

“I’m gonna get some air. You clean up in here.”

And then Castiel, irreversibly transformed, is left alone in the backseat to clean the wreckage of his past self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to state, in case any youths read this, that having sex does not actually change who you are. I am just being melodramatic. So is Cas. If Cas is transformed here, it’s by the trauma of being explicitly told to hide/repress his feelings about this confusing experience, which is why you never ever agree to have sex with someone who SWEARS YOU TO SECRECY AND/OR WONT LET YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OH MY GOD DEAN


	3. s09e06 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night after Cas's 'date,' Dean takes care of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so sad but look they were too miserable to bang ok
> 
> This is the episode that made me stop watching spn the first time around
> 
> Dean really just left him there huh
> 
> Warning: sad + not explicit

“Where to, Cas?” Dean asks as Cas leaves Nora’s house.

Cas just gives him a look, then gets into the passenger seat.

“Cas?” Dean asks, getting into the Impala. “What’s wrong?”

“I— can’t we just stay here?”

“What, in the car?”

Cas doesn’t respond. He looks down at his hands, picks at something under his nails.

Dean lets the silence sink in. He isn’t sure what Cas means, exactly, but he has an idea. Cas is ashamed of wherever he’s living, or maybe he isn’t living anywhere at all. Guilt settles deep in his stomach. Dean nods.

“Sure, Cas. We can stay here if you want,” says Dean, and Cas meets his eyes. “Or, I could get us a motel room. Wash off all that baby barf.”

“A shower?”

Dean nods. He watches Cas carefully. There’s something different about him, and it isn’t just the humanity. He seems… fragile.

Cas looks away again. “Whatever you want, Dean.”

Motel it is, then. Dean decides to stop for burgers on the way as well, even though he just ate. He has a feeling Cas hasn’t been getting enough hot food. He orders himself a burger and swallows it down so that Cas won’t feel self-conscious, and watches to make sure Cas finishes his own. Then he drives them to a motel with a vacancy sign and gets them two queen beds for the night.

“Thank you, Dean,” says Cas as he begins undressing in the middle of the room.

“Don’t mention it.” Dean makes himself look away from his best friend as he strips down to his boxers and heads into the bathroom. He sighs heavily. There’s no desk in the room, so he sits on top of his bedspread, lost for what to do.

He’d been so thrilled when Cas first became human, when they’d found him and brought him home, somehow brighter, more emotional, than he’d ever been before. He’d finally been _available,_ no longer a celestial wavelength, and of course it made Dean feel guilty, to take delight in something that Cas hated, but there it was. He’d been happy. And then Gadreel—

Dean gets out his phone, starts flipping through news sites, looking for cases.

He thinks about Cas, naked on the other side of the wall. How he’d look covered in running water, it dripping down his pale skin, his hands—

Dean stops. It was all relatively new, these thoughts. He hadn’t let himself have them in so long. Only recently had he started looking at men again, thinking _maybe…_. But Cas wasn’t _men_. You didn’t think about your best friend this way. And now that Cas _could_ (maybe, possibly, in his wildest dreams) reciprocate, it was more important than ever that Dean not slip up and flirt. Because either Cas would be into it or he wouldn’t, and Dean wasn’t sure which outcome would be worse. Relationships with Winchesters always went bad, after all. And when it did go bad with Cas, well then he’d be out one of the only friends he had.

Dean sighs again, leans his head back against the headboard, misestimates the distance and ends up hitting his head.

“Shit,” he mutters, and leans back again, carefully this time.

Cas’d better get back out here, put some clothes on, and say something stupid or he was going to go insane. Soon enough he does return, padding back in dressed in only a towel and asking something about scented hand soap’s effect on polyester. It’s easier, with Cas in the room, to pretend to be normal, even if he has to look at Cas’s naked body. It’s easier to ignore his thoughts when there’s a conversation, when at least one of them is acting normal.

“Normal” is relative, though, Dean reflects, as Cas passes out a moment later on his bed with the wet towel still wrapped around his waist. No way was Dean touching that.

In the bathroom, Dean finds Cas’s wet boxers hanging on the curtain rod. Hand washed, Dean realizes. That explained Cas’s soap question. Hell. Dean had been fucking around with angel deals while his best friend was homeless. He washes up in a haze of guilt, then leaves the bathroom (fully dressed in his pajamas, thank you very much), and goes to his wallet. He’s only got a hundred in cash. He stuffs it into Cas’s pants pocket, and then stares at Cas, still in the wet towel and half-off the bed. He nudges Cas awake.

“Hey. You’re gonna freeze to death.”

Cas blinks blearily up at him. “Oh.”

“I’ll just— go over here.” Dean goes to his bed and sits facing the wall, giving Cas a moment to slide naked under the covers.

“You can turn around now.”

He does, making brief eye contact before Cas rolls over in his bed, pulling the sheet tightly around himself.

“'Night, Cas.”

“Goodnight, Dean.”

It takes Dean a few hours to fall asleep.

He’s woken early in the morning by a hand on his shoulder.

“Dean.”

“Wha—“ Dean pulls his pistol and aims it up to find Cas standing above him. He doesn’t react to having a gun shoved in his face, and despite the night in a bed he still looks weary, eternally with the bags under his eyes. “Shit. Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry to wake you. I, uh. I need a ride to work.”

Dean sits up and rubs his temple with the handle of his gun. He needs coffee. “Sure, yeah. No problem.”

It feels shitty, saying goodbye to Cas. Dean can apologize for kicking him out, but he can’t invite him back. All he can do is try to encourage him, and be glad that maybe being human will keep Cas safe and out of trouble. He leaves Cas there at the Gas n’ Sip and wonders when doing the right thing had become so confusing.

It isn’t until he stops for coffee and gas an hour later that he discovers the five crumpled twenty-dollar bills in his wallet.


	4. s11e23 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean considers his traumas & his feelings for Castiel before facing the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my most hated ‘no homo’ moment is definitely the ‘you’re our brother’ from Dean in 11x23. So anyway I made it all about gay repression, self-hatred, and suicide. have some fun today by not reading this chapter
> 
> I promise there are less-depressing chapters in the future. I also promise they will fuck again.
> 
> Warnings: depression, self harm, suicide, sad, not explicit, not even very much Cas in this one:( I mean why would you read this really

Dean Winchester has been haunted almost as long as he can remember, and he collects new ghosts every year. Sometimes it feels like Dean’s done nothing but gather ghosts; traumas, horrific memories, regrets. He’s hurt so many people. They never go away, none of them. Not even the defeated ones. Alistair appears in his dreams regularly, so does Azazel, and so does Lucifer, staring out of Sammy’s face with red, burning eyes. Sometimes it’s himself, instead, with black ones. Sometimes Dean watches his mother burn on the ceiling. Mary is his oldest ghost. She’s followed him since he was a child, since his father told him his duty was to her. They sent her actual ghost to heaven, they killed the demon that killed her, but still Mary’s ghost won’t leave Dean alone. It lives in his mind, in his heart, in his dreams. And if anything it’s grown more powerful. He knows how it feels to burn, now. He knows how Mary must have felt as she died. He knows what it means to be consumed.

They let him be, sometimes. When he’s with people, or when he’s hunting. When he drinks enough, but not too much. So long as he’s distracted enough from himself, it stops. But when he’s alone.

When he’s alone, the ghosts play.

Every year since he was four, it’s been like this. Every year, there are new ghosts. The old ones never leave. And he’s lived so long now, longer than expected; he knows he’s living on borrowed time. Soon there will be too many ghosts to bear.

Mary. Ellen. Jo. Ash. Benny. Kevin. Charlie.

Cas’s ghost was just one of many, but it held a special place in his heart. Cas didn’t have to be dead, to haunt Dean.

Cas had started haunting him years ago. Dean was freshly broken, then. A younger man. He’d had fewer ghosts, and a better handle on them, though it had felt overwhelming at the time. He’d let himself be tempted, and Cas had kissed him, and Dean knew he’d never forget it, much as he tried. The ghost of Cas had shadowed him since, in dreams and in waking. It was everywhere. It was in the dark of night and a bottle of whiskey, in the glint of a monster’s eye and the brush of a stranger’s mouth, in a chill touch of wind and the shiver it sent up his spine. Cas was behind his eyelids, dominating his mind with a penetrating stare, an unspoken accusation filling Dean’s gut with shame.

Dean used to distract himself from these thoughts. He used to send them away, choose the horrors of fire and blood to haunt him instead, anything to save him from facing that part of himself. He was built for blood. Raised for horror.

He wasn’t built for this.

After Purgatory, after he’d allowed himself to spend so much time with thoughts of Cas, talking to him, longing for him, his will had weakened and nearly broken, but he’d built it back up again after taking the Mark. He had felt a sort of relief when it had appeared on his arm. With it there, Dean had the blessing of certainty. He had known not to try anything, that they were doomed from the start.

But lately.

Lately, everything was doomed anyway.

And Dean was having a hard time sticking to the same old hero role.

He couldn’t even hurt Amara.

Not: Amara couldn’t be hurt.

He, useless, ex-hero Dean Winchester, couldn’t hurt her.

And fighting Amara meant—

It meant letting Lucifer take Cas’s body for a joyride.

So that old ghost had started haunting him again, whenever he was alone, spreading guilt and shame through his bones. Dean couldn’t send it away, not when Cas was in trouble, in pain, from Lucifer and Amara both— the two most powerful enemies they’d ever faced, and Cas had to take them both on at once. Alone.

Dean deserved every ghost he got. Even the good ones hurt.

He lets them hurt him, alone, in the dark of his room. He dwells on memories, lets himself think thoughts that he’s banished countless times; he revels in them. He thinks about Cas.

He never breathes a word of it to Sam. Sam wouldn’t understand. Sam _ought to_ understand better than anyone. Sam had been possessed by Lucifer, had been _broken_ by Lucifer, and yet he was fine with letting him have free rein over Cas. _Cas._ It breaks what little trust they’d built.

And Dean has no one else to talk to. Charlie is dead. His own fault. He has only his ghosts for company; them, and the Darkness herself. When he looks in her eyes, everything is okay, because he doesn’t feel haunted anymore. He doesn’t feel lonely. He doesn’t feel ashamed. When he looks in her eyes, he doesn’t feel anything at all.

And afterward, he feels ten times worse.

It is what it is.

It’s tempting.

Dean’s will finally breaks after their failed attack on Amara; he’s crouched down next to Cas’s body, a hand on Cas’s shoulder, expecting Lucifer to answer, but it’s Cas’s voice that says his name.

Cas says his name, and Dean finally lets himself think it. I love this dumb son of a bitch.

He helps Cas up and they all head back home in a haze of failure, the sky red above them as the sun begins to die. In the bunker, people start ferreting out tea and alcohol: small comforts, but they don’t have anything harder, and Dean knows the two half-full bottles of whiskey and one six-pack of beer they have are not going to serve. They have a few more hours, maybe even the whole night, to live. He looks over at Cas.

It’s a ghost that he’s allowed to resurface recently, only during his loneliest moments, only when the pain is already so great that a little bit of pleasure seems worth the cascade of shame to follow. It’s a dark alley somewhere in Maine, the backseat of his car, the early hours of the morning. It’s Cas’s voice groaning his name, gasping out in pleasure. It’s Cas’s lips on his, opening him up, exposing his soul to the world. It’s the cold of night, the sinking feeling in his gut. It’s shame. It’s darkness.

It’s their last night on earth.

Dean wonders if he’d hurt Cas that night, or if Cas was indifferent to the whole experience. He wants to ask: Hey, Cas, remember when I blew you? Was that as traumatizing for you as it was for me? Want to try it again?

God.

He’s so ashamed, and he doesn’t even understand why. He doesn’t want to feel it, he’s sick of feeling it, unrelenting in his stomach for years. He doesn’t know how to get it to stop.

No, that’s not true.

He knows one way to get it to stop.

Black eyes, black mist, oblivion.

It’s only a matter of hours.

Cas comes along for the beer run. Dean wants to tell him— tell him so many things. He probably won’t be able to until he’s had quite a few. There was still enough time for that. But they start talking about Cas’s feelings and then he ends up trying to say it anyway, without figuring out what he wants to say first. Dean struggles with words as he drives, thanks Cas for being there, tries to tell him how important he is, thinks to himself, _what’s the point in trying to change things now,_ thinks, _he can’t love you anyway,_ thinks, _you didn't even save him,_ chickens out and calls him a brother. At least it’s a word he’s pretty sure Cas understands.

After all of that, Cas was gonna be confused as hell if Dean got up the nerve to try to jump his bones later.

God.

It’s not like sex is all he wants. But Cas wouldn’t understand if he asked for more. There wasn’t time for more. Dean wishes there was. How the hell was he supposed to figure all this out now, at the eleventh hour? Cas deserved time. Cas deserved— hell, Dean didn’t know. Better than him, anyway. Better than the Darkness.

His phone rings. Sammy has a plan. He turns the car around, they head back to the bunker, and now instead of everyone’s last night on earth it’s only Dean’s.

The hours before his confrontation with Amara are strange. Everyone is weirdly calm, formal. There’s something distancing about being the ritual sacrifice, about knowing that everyone has agreed to an existential contract allowing you to die. Dean agrees to it, too. It’s what they expect him to do.

And so begins their last Hail Mary play.

Sam doesn’t even let Dean drive. He’s fragile cargo now, a literal bomb. Cas is next to him in the backseat, escorting him to his doom. _It’s my last hour on Earth,_ Dean thinks bitterly to himself, staring at Cas. _Wanna fill it?_ A shitty line. He doesn’t have the words to say what he wants to, and he can’t bring himself to talk anyway, not when they aren’t alone in the car. Not when he fucked it up so bad last time. But he wants. And he fears. God, the fear is so strong now. He wants to skip to the blissful end, when the fear is gone, when all of these feelings are gone, but also, he’s afraid to go. Cas’s hand is resting on the seat between them, and Dean longs to reach out and take it. He wishes he’d done something earlier, established some sort of something—anything—with Cas, just so he could do that now. He wants that certainty couples must have, that if he were to take Cas’s hand now, Cas would hold his in return. The risk of it paralyzes him. Shame burrows into his gut. Even with oblivion around the corner, he still doesn’t have the balls to say anything.

They reach the graveyard. It’s a matter of minutes now. Time to say goodbye. Sammy is the hardest to leave, but it's comforting, as well. It’s good to know that Sam is still alive, that Dean’ll go down saving him. As it should be. Crowley and Rowena are uncharacteristically silent. Chuck is fine. Everyone is following the terms of the contract they’d written, sad and simple, until Cas rips it to shreds.

_I could go with you._

Cas offers himself up. And Dean’s heart breaks.

 _No, no, no,_ he says to Cas, the best friend a man could ask for. _I gotta do this alone,_ he says. _Look out for Sam,_ he says. _Stay alive,_ he doesn’t quite say. _Please. Just stay alive._

They're all he has, their lives. They’re his only comfort, in a world full of ghosts.

It’s easier than he’d expected, walking towards oblivion. It seems easy for the people watching him, too. Maybe that’s because it’s right. Maybe he never really fit among them, and now, this would fix everything. This was his contribution, to the good, normal, not-so-fucked-up-as-him people—to remove himself from their world entirely. He and the Darkness could go together, and leave the rest to live their lives in peace. His ghosts would be forever quiet. He wouldn’t feel ever again.

He’s out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this you get a medal.
> 
> Cas/Crowley next????


	5. s12e03 (Cas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas isn't pleased when Crowley joins him on the hunt for Lucifer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically no Dean, but his presence is felt I assure you. Besides, featured here you'll find: Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, bitter ex!Crowley, jealous!Cas, Cas’s view on the 11x23 no homo debacle, a certain someone's business card, and The Mixtape
> 
> I have a feeling this is going to be the Most Canonical of all these because you can NOT convince me this conversation didn’t happen. 
> 
> Warnings: not actually that sad! I had fun! Not explicit! Sure there's a little angst but who can get that sad when Crowley's around! And Cas irrationally hates him!

Dean had called him a brother once before, and it hadn’t been heartbreaking. It had felt like almost picking every pin but one in a lock. Not good enough to be freeing, but almost. It shouldn’t have hurt the second time he said it, either. Cas knew Dean well enough to expect it. He should have expected it. Maybe if he had, it wouldn’t have been so crushing.

The problem, stupidly enough, was Crowley. Long before Lucifer had possessed Castiel, while Dean was struggling with the Mark of Cain and they were forced to work together again, Crowley had made comments to him about Dean—the sort of comments with untoward implications, the sort designed to make Cas’s skin crawl. They had a pointed, bitter tone to them. _Maybe even jealous?_ Cas had wondered at the time, and therein lay his ruination. Because, if Crowley was jealous, then… maybe there was something to be jealous _of._

Crowley, in his insidious, petty machinations, had given Castiel hope. And so it had hurt like a comet to the ribcage a few weeks ago, when the world was ending and memories of another last night on earth were drifting to the surface of his conscious mind, when that hope, a small, winged, fluttering thing in his chest, was so casually murdered by Dean’s words.

Our brother.

Not even _my_ brother. _Our_ brother. As if Dean didn’t want Cas to belong to him.

The kindness had been the worst part, that rare, kind tone with which he tore Cas’s heart from his chest. Cas wished he could cherish Dean’s kindness, could rise above all this somehow instead of sinking deeper into hidden, covetous desire. He should take some small comfort that at least he’d hidden it well. Then again, sometimes he wishes he didn’t bother to hide it at all. Let Dean see the look in his eyes and understand his devotion, not as the filial thing he assumed all love to be, but something else. Let Dean deal with the confusion, the emotion. Let Dean be the one to sit in discomfort.

Petty thoughts. Weakness.

It always hurt Castiel, to look at Dean Winchester and not to love him, openly and loudly, but that was no excuse for pettiness. It was no excuse for mistakes. Cas needed time to heal the hole in his chest, to climb upright and find his pride again. So, he had more than one reason to search for Lucifer. By finding Lucifer, Cas could save the world, redeem himself in his own eyes and Dean’s, spend some alone, and maybe, by the end, feel less like a piece of shit.

At least, that’s what he’d planned to do before he ran into Crowley. Again.

What was supposed to be a distraction from Dean had turned into a never-ending deluge of innuendo about Dean. Crowley figured out early on in their ‘investigation’ that it was easier to get a rise out of Cas by mentioning Dean’s name than Cas’s own, and he took full advantage. He’d talk about Dean with this look in his eye, an I-know-something-you-don’t look that made Cas want to punch through his skull.

They stop at a traffic light in rural Indiana one night at 3am. It’s still early in the drive to California; there are around thirty more hours to go. Crowley shows no sign of ever shutting his hideous mouth, at least he hasn’t bothered to for the entire ride so far, and he’s gone from objectifying Dean to complaining about him now.

“It’s exhausting being used all the time, isn’t it? They’ll happily throw you at a rabid archangel, without so much as a ‘thank you’ after. Not even a fag and a coffee. It’s absolutely despicable. I’ve worked my way up the corporate ladder in Hell, and I can tell you honestly that there is no job in the universe less rewarding than running errands for that pumped-up, ungrateful, shotgun shell of repression and his holier-than thou brother.” Cas doesn’t know what to say to this; it rings a little too true. He’s a relieved when Crowley keeps talking instead of asking his opinion.

The word _repression_ strikes a chord, though. Despite all of Crowley’s talk he’d never actually said anything specific about Dean, only given vague implications. _Crowley knows,_ Cas thinks to himself. Crowley knows if Dean’s disinterest is anatomical or personal. Crowley knows exactly what Dean’s inclinations were, in his darkest moments, with no inhibitions whatsoever. Crowley knows if Cas has any chance at all. His curiosity gets the better of him, and he interrupts whatever Crowley is droning on about now. “When Dean was a demon—“

“—Yes?” Crowley actually has the nerve to sound excited at Cas’s interruption, and it sours the question in Cas’s mouth. “You want all the lurid details?”

_“No.”_

“Go ahead and ask, feathers. I’m an open book.”

Tempting. But just being tempted was a failure of will. He was ultimately still so weak when it came to Dean Winchester. It was a mistake to even consider asking Crowley for anything, much less gossip on his activities with Dean. Either they _had_ or they _hadn’t,_ and neither answer could possibly satisfy. Cas ignores him and proceeds slowly through the now-green traffic light.

But Crowley won’t shut up. “You aren’t curious? You don’t want to know _anything_ about the obscene things that he’s done to—“

“—Enough, you…”—he’s so set on cutting Crowley off that he doesn’t have an insult prepared— “ass-fiend.”

Crowley raises his eyebrows annoyingly. “Ohh. Name-calling. Well, you can relax. Fiendish as I may be, I’m not here to torture you.” Evidence to the contrary: Crowley didn’t _need_ to be in the car at all, annoying Cas with his inane chatter; he could easily teleport to California and spare them both the headache. “I’m over him, anyway,” Crowley continues dismissively. “I’m over both of them. It’s back to dear old hedonism for me. Not that you’d know anything about that. You’re more into denial, I suppose. You’ve a distinct sado-masochist bent, am I right?” Cas looks at him from the corner of his eye. Crowley always talks about the world through the lens of sex, so it’s hard to tell if he is actually asking about Cas’s sexual proclivities or just insulting Cas’s personality. Crowley doesn’t wait for an answer either way. “You’d have to be, to keep chasing after him for so long. You know if you get off on _not_ getting off, I have quite a few male politician’s numbers I could give you.”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure? They can be extraordinarily abusive, and they’ll ignore you with more panache.”

“No one’s _ignoring_ me.”

“No? Then tell me, feathers, while I, a fiend from the bowels of Hell itself, assist you with finding and defeating the single greatest threat to humanity in the world today, where exactly is your flannel-clad degenerate? Off having an affair?”

“He—“ When had everything become so blatantly about Dean? _“They_ are otherwise occupied.”

“Ah-huh.” Cas doesn’t miss the judgmental tone with which he says it.

“What is your _problem?”_ he asks finally, frustrated.

“I’m not the one with the problem. Tell me, Cas. What exactly do you get, out of your little affair with ‘them?’”

“We’re not in a business arrangement.”

“I didn’t say you were. All relationships, all _healthy_ relationships, should be mutually beneficial. You remember, in the good old days, whe _n_ you and I conspired together—“

“—We released a species of eldritch monstrosities unto the world.”

“—Be _fore_ you betrayed me, anyway, we had a wonderful, _fair_ relationship. You’d belittle me for being a demon, and I’d remind you that you’re not so shiny as you like to think you are. No one was beholden to anyone else. No one was moping about like a declawed kitten. And you— I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re a lot easier to work with now, but you used to have a certain _je ne sais quoi_ that’s just… been beaten out of you. You’re whipped, Cassie. They’ve tamed you. They’re not your friends, they’re your owners and you’re their pet. You’re their little angel on a string.”

“Do you _ever_ shut up?”

“I’m just trying to help. I’ve been in your shoes. He doesn’t care about you, love. Get out while you still have a little spark of angel left in you.”

“What, and work with you?” It’s the wrong thing to say. Crowley is delighted.

“Why, Cas. I’m flattered. I confess I did enjoy working our little case today. Are you admitting that it was as good for you as it was for me?”

“I’ve always hated you,” Cas clarifies.

“Hate is a strong word. You were just using me for your own ends. Who doesn’t, these days.” Crowley trails off into blissful silence, his depressing statement hanging in the air for a few moments before he speaks again, voice a quiet growl over the rumble of the engine. “We could use each other again, you know. For more than this Lucifer thing. I could help you.” Cas glances over, but finds no clue as to what Crowley is talking about. He’s fiddling with one of the air vents, tweaking it with a finger. It doesn’t matter what he intends, anyway.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, you don’t? It’s written all over your face, you know. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing.”

Cas gives in. _“What.”_

“Heartbreak. There’s a simple treatment, and I’m not bad at administering it, if I say so myself. Could possibly even work that stick out your ass while I’m at it. Be good for both of us.” Cas looks over, tries to parse what this could possibly mean. A spell to cure heartbreak? Crowley sighs at him. _“Sex,_ angel. I’m saying I’ll help you work out your sexual frustrations, you needy little whore, you.” Insults aside, he seems sincere. How bleak a euphemism he’d chosen. _Use each other._ As if Cas would ever agree to such an arrangement. Crowley rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t give me that look. It’s just sex, not a pack of leviathan.”

The mere thought is disgusting. “I’ll pass.”

“Alright, but don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Oh,” Cas counters, riled now, “forgive me for not falling to my knees in gratitude.”

“Careful, Cassie.” There’s a sepulchral tone to the words. Crowley’s many eyes gleam from out the darkness. “I know that’s not a high horse you’re standing on. The truth is, you’re crawling on all fours in the mud with the rest of us, whether you like it or not.”

Cas doesn’t bother to respond, and Crowley lapses, finally, into silence. The world is dark at this hour, quiet. It’s one of his favorite times of day to exist. His thoughts wander.

Perhaps Crowley had a point, if indelicately made. After all, Dean had made his feelings perfectly clear. Maybe it would be good for Cas to develop other relationships. Not with Crowley, of course. Crowley was vile. But Cas still has that card in his pocket, from the British man of letters, Mick Davies. Mick had been flirting with him, Cas knew, because Dean had teased him about it afterwards, asking if he was going to make a ‘booty call.’ _No_ had been Castiel’s answer at the time; he hadn’t even considered it. He’d never considered anything like it, barring a brief stint of humanity which had overwhelmed his senses.

It’s a strange idea, seeking out other men. Romance with anyone else was impossible, certainly; no one would mean anything close to what Dean meant to him. Sex seems more realistic, but Cas hasn’t exactly had good experiences with casual sex in the past. He considers the business card in his pocket. Was it, as Crowley seemed to imply, the healthy thing to do?

“Haven’t you got any music, at least?” Crowley asks grouchily. He’s shoved himself into the corner of the seat that’s farthest from Cas; it reminds him a bit of Claire’s pout, if Claire had a mouth that cut from ear to ear and six shining black eyes.

Castiel has one cassette tape, which Dean had given to him before he’d set out alone to track Lucifer. “To keep you company on the road,” Dean had said then, and it makes Cas smile now to think of it. He presses play on the tape deck, and the first sounds of Led Zeppelin’s _Rock and Roll_ start blaring through the speakers.

“Oh, _bloody hell,”_ objects Crowley loudly and derisively. “This is _sick.”_

“The driver picks the music.” Cas turns it up. If he was lucky, maybe Crowley would leave.

But instead Crowley hits a lever on his seat and falls back in it roughly until he’s almost laying flat, and then turns on his side, facing away from Cas. “You’re depraved,” he whines pitifully. “You need psychiatric assistance.” And then, mercy of mercies, he pretends to sleep for the rest of the tape.

Cas lets the sound of Dean Winchester surround him as he drives down the highway. He forgets ever considering Mick Davies.

_Seems so long since we walked in the moonlight_

_Making vows that just can't work right_

_Open your arms, open your arms, open your arms_

_Baby, let my love come running in_

_It's been a long time, been a long time_

_Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: actual Dean/Cas lol


	6. s12e09 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean returns to his life after being jailed with a clearer idea of what he wants & the guts to ask for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m thinking this fic has a proper continuity to it now so I shouldn’t be going around calling it drabbles anymore. Don’t be surprised if the title changes… if I ever think of a new one. :/
> 
> The Road So Far (since I don’t summarize much in this one): in this ep Sam and Dean escape from jail/solitary (or some illegal federal holding facility????) by praying to Billie. Billie agrees to spring them on the condition that a Winchester die, but then Cas says FUCK THAT and kills her Most Righteously (RIP Queen good luck with the promotion). NO ONE THANKS CAS in fact they yell at him a little bit i hate this show
> 
> Warnings: explicit, not so sad this time, just some miscommunication drama but if you can't handle that why are you here that's all this fic will ever be

The drive back to the bunker is charged with a strange energy. Cas’s words seem to have penetrated every Winchester there, and so the time passes mostly in silence, radio off. Dean is sitting beside Cas in the backseat, and he can feel the resentment radiating off him. He glances over, but Cas is staring resolutely out the window. That angry “You’re welcome” seems to fill the space between them, only a foot or so of distance in the tiny car. Maybe that’s why, to his own surprise, Dean is the first to break.

“Cas,” he says, and Cas does him the favor of looking over. It _feels_ heavy like a favor, like Cas has done so much for them that nothing Dean can ask will be small enough. “Thanks.”

Cas’s expression loses its edge, and he nods before turning to the window once again. Dean feels so alone.

 _This world needs you,_ he’d said. _I won’t let you sacrifice yourselves,_ he’d said. _You mean too much to me,_ he’d said.

And Dean knows it wasn’t for him, but for all of them, all of Cas’s found family here on Earth. But wasn’t he the one who’d made the deal with Billie in the first place? Wasn’t he the one sacrificing himself to the Darkness, on that day not so long ago, when Cas had said _I could go with you?_ When Cas had been the only one who’d said he didn’t have to go it alone? And why didn’t Cas say those things back then instead?

_I won’t let you sacrifice yourselves._

_You mean too much to me._

Dean can feel the thoughts tangling up, writhing within him, gnawing at his insides. He wants to ignore them, to press them down like he always does, but it’s starting to feel inevitable, like he and Cas have been orbiting each other, fighting each other, saving each other, over and over, and eventually they’ll collide and the universe will be destroyed forever.

Cas does love him. Dean forgets it, sometimes. After all, when Cas is around he’s usually quiet, and so often he isn’t around at all—so often he’s off trying to do the right thing, whether it’s the actual right thing or not. And then sometimes Cas pulls shit like this, threatening the cosmic order out of love. And maybe it’s not love in the way Dean wants, the way he’d dreamt of, secretly, in the darkness of his cell, but he does love Dean. They are family. Most of the time, that’s enough.

When they get home, the first thing Sam and Dean do is shower off. The bunker showers are set up communally: there are ten or so showerheads running straight down the wall, with tiled partitions between them and a grey plastic curtain to each. Sam showers quickly and leaves, but Dean lets his sore muscles relax in the hot water, lets the dirt and blood flow away with green suds of soap. He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out again. Another breath. Another. With each breath he lets the feelings of _freedom_ and _home_ and _safety_ soak back into him. He isn’t sure how long he stands there—a long time, more than long enough to fill the large room with steam—before a voice echoes through the air.

“Dean?”

“Cas?” Dean asks, confused.

Cas’s shuffling footsteps approach Dean’s stall.

“I, ah, brought you something,” grumbles Cas, and a moment later a bottle is pushed through the gap in the curtain. Dean takes it in surprise and examines the label. It’s a top shelf bourbon. The hell?

“You brought me shower whiskey?” he asks in disbelief.

“I assume they didn’t supply you with any in federal lockup.”

Dean smiles. “Cas, man, I could kiss you.”

There’s a pause as Cas steps to the side, out of view through the gap in the curtain. “That won’t be necessary.”

Dean stares down at the bottle. He feels dopey, drunk already before the cork’s been popped. He begins to tear at the paper wrapping on the top of the bottle.

“You want in on this?” Dean grabs the cork between his teeth and begins to pull.

“No, there’s”—he’s interrupted by the POP! of the cork—“no need to waste it on me,” Cas finishes dryly. Dean spits it into his hand.

“Oh, come on. Don’t make me drink alone.” Dean proffers the wet bottle back through the curtain. After a moment, he sees Cas’s hand take it. There’s a pause while Cas takes a drink, then the bottle is pushed back through the curtain again. Dean takes a sip. Spicy. Hints of honey. Something floral. Goes down easy. He takes a larger gulp, feels it burn on the way down.

“That’s good stuff, Cas.”

“I’ll let you finish up.”

“No, no, I’m done here.” Dean turns off the shower as he speaks. He’s suddenly very eager that Cas not leave. There’s a voice in his head yelling _What the hell, Dean,_ but Dean ignores it. He just got out of prison, he’s allowed a little fun. “Towel?” Dean asks. He thinks he hears a sigh from Cas, but a second later Cas’s angelic hand appears again through the curtain, a rough grey towel hanging from his fingers. Dean trades it for the open whiskey bottle and dries off, then wraps the towel around his waist and steps out into the shower room. Cas looks— ruffled. Befuddled. A little frizzy from the humidity. Overdressed. Infinitely Cas-like. Dean grabs the whiskey back possessively and takes several big swigs. “Come on, I wanna talk to you,” Dean lies, and leads Cas to his bedroom. He drinks quite a bit on the short walk there.

In his room, the door safely closed behind them, Dean puts the bottle down on the dresser and turns to Cas, standing there in the doorway as if nothing is strange. Dean takes a breath. He steps forward. Releases the breath. Cas stays where he is, close. Dean flattens Cas’s lapels for him and _—fuck it—_ leaves his hands on his chest. He isn’t brave enough to look up at Cas. His heart is beating like crazy. The closeness between them feels volatile but fragile, promising so much, and Dean is afraid to disturb it in case it crumbles to nothing. Dean can feel Cas’s eyes on him, but Cas doesn’t object and doesn’t move away. He just lets Dean exist in his space. How much else would he allow?

“Dean?” Cas whispers.

Dean meets his gaze. Cas looks confused, but not disgusted. Not angry. “Cas, is it okay if I—just—“ Dean pauses, searches for words, doesn’t find the ones he wants. “It’s been a long time, since— It’s just… been a while.” Dean whispers finally, maybe the worst line he’s ever used. As if it were a reasonable excuse. As if it made using Cas okay.

Cas stares back. He still looks confused, but he nods yes, so Dean presses up against him, pulls Cas close by his tie, and brings their lips together. Cas’s lips are impossibly gentle, asking for nothing, only giving, and Dean is incredibly aware of himself, of his nakedness, of the towel that won’t stay up much longer, of his already hardening dick. He’s shivering, but not with cold. He opens his mouth wide, invites Cas in, and Cas comes, licking into Dean, drawing moans from him, his hands wandering to Dean’s naked waist. Cas holds him there, pelvises just touching. Dean feels so exposed, so vulnerable. There’s something gratifying about it—and terrifying. Cas could kill him with the wrong word.

“Dean—“ Cas whispers against his mouth.

“Don’t,” Dean cuts him off. “Not a word, remember?”

“But, I—“

“It’s just sex, Cas.”

Cas is quiet at that, meeting Dean’s gaze for a moment before looking away again. Then he nods and they are back in business, kissing and walking to the bed, towel falling somewhere along the way. Dean pulls the tie off and pushes Cas’s coat down off his arms, and Cas undoes his own shirt, throwing it aside. For him, for him. It sends a thrill up Dean’s spine. After all, he thinks to himself as he undoes Cas’s belt and a smile begins to grow on his face, how often did he get to be selfish? How often did he get to have fun?

He hits the mattress backwards, pulling Cas down on top of him, memory foam sinking beneath them. Cas is kissing into him slowly— _why_ so slowly—and as Dean ruts up against his thigh, Cas gasps deliciously against his lips. Dean fills the space between them with his tongue.

There’s dirty talk welling up in him—Dean is not a naturally quiet lover—but he swallows it down. _No talking,_ he reminds himself. Cas slides further up the bed, onto it proper, and Dean follows, then pushes Cas’s shoulders flat. He takes Cas’s cock in his hand and gives it a pull as he kisses his angel on the neck, feeling Cas swallow and gasp in response, stubble scratching at Dean’s lips, hands clinging to Dean’s sides. God, Cas was surprisingly expressive, tender beneath his hands. Dean moans without meaning to, rubbing himself against Cas’s thigh, and Cas responds by raking a hand hard down the skin of his back, which causes a shudder to erupt down his spine.

“ _God_ , Cas, that’s good,” Dean says before he remembers he’s not supposed to be talking.

And then Cas is flipping them. Dean’s surprised by his strength as Cas presses down on him from above— it’s been so long since any of it’s been directed at him. Dean writhes in delight at the sensation as Cas grabs his hands, trapping him against the mattress, and then kisses first his mouth, then his jaw, his neck, his ear. Cas is going overboard, kissing every part of Dean regardless of whether or not it’s an erogenous zone. He’s licking his chest, nipples, stomach, bellybutton, only stopping short at Dean’s cock, letting go of Dean’s hands as he stares at it as if it’s some tentacle monster.

“It’s okay, Cas, you don’t have to—“ Dean starts to tell him, but then Cas licks him in one long movement from base to tip, meeting Dean’s eyes halfway through, and Dean can’t speak. “—Mm,” he finishes his sentence, trying not to moan aloud. Cas’s lips surround Dean’s tip. His tongue swirls around it gently. Dean shudders. “Hell,” he sighs. Cas’s eyes are still staring back up at him. Dean can’t read the expression in them, but he doesn’t care much at this point. They’re beautiful and erotic, and he can’t help but egg Cas on. “Oh, please keep going.” Cas hums, as if to ask Dean if he’s sure, and the feel of it on his tip makes Dean moan. “Please, please, Cas.” And Cas doesn’t tease him any longer. He swallows Dean down, surprisingly deep, and sucks as he moves back up, and Dean is in crisis. He wants to fall back, to relax against the mattress and let the pleasure take him, but he has to watch. He has to watch as those angelic lips surround him, sucking and slurping and humming and driving him insane. He has to watch those blue eyes staring up at him. “Shit, Cas. You never told me you were so— ah!— dirty. Oh-mmm. Yes. _Yes.”_ Cas slowly speeds up and draws more and more words from him until Dean is gripping Cas by the hair and gasping and cursing and warning him to get off he’s about to come— but Cas keeps going and then Dean’s making a goddamn embarrassing-as-hell sound as he comes in Cas’s mouth. Cas pulls off of him slowly and swallows everything down without missing a beat. His eyes return to Dean’s.

“Fucking hell, Cas,” Dean pants.

Cas leans back down on the mattress, head next to Dean’s. “No talking, Dean,” he rebuffs mildly.

Dean laughs weakly. “My bad.”

Cas stares at him. His eyes are so perfect, so blue. Dean loses himself for a moment. He’s in bed with an angel.

Cas speaks softly. “Dean, I—“

“—Oh. Oh, shit, sorry.” Dean gets up and kneels over Cas. He kisses Cas’s cock gently. It’s salty, ready. Dean looks back up to check on Cas, but as he does so realizes there’s no need to be so careful. Cas isn’t the same angel he hooked up with all those years ago. He no longer looks afraid of, or overwhelmed by, sex. He’s looking down seriously, more like an eagle-eyed foreman than some timid virgin, and Dean isn’t sure what that expression is exactly, but there’s something about it that sets his heart beating fast. Dean looks away and drops down, opening Cas’s legs so he can suck one of his balls gently. Above him, Cas moans quietly, almost a sigh. Dean swirls his tongue, tries to make it good, tries to make himself worth Cas’s time. By the time he takes Cas’s cock into his mouth, Cas is practically snapping at him to get to it, panting and impatient with want, a celestially powerful hand guiding him over to his work, and Dean goes to it gladly, mindlessly, and a little more in love with Cas than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Cas didn’t have lapels in season 12” oh yeah come fight me about it then
> 
> Next up... more mixtape?


	7. s12e19 (Cas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets played

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now I have to warn you if you haven’t read the last two chapters you probably won’t understand this one so these are officially not drabbles they’re just… a fic, I guess. Please let me know if there is a name for this kind of thing in particular I am still new here. 
> 
> Warnings: explicit, graduated to like proper porn this time, rimming, roughish sex but not really, lack of verbal consent, dubcon if you don't consider prayers consent. Par for the course level of angst. Also includes total plagiarism of That Scene because wow there was way too much going on to paraphrase it.

It happens again.

It happens several more times.

There’s no way of predicting it, no schedule, no pattern. The only system they use is Dean’s whims. Dean more than once drags Cas into dark corners and distracts him with no warning, just a flurry of lips and tongue that ends as suddenly as it begins, both of them left panting into each other’s mouths. Other times, Dean gives Cas a nod or a tap on the shoulder, and Cas dutifully follows him to his room, where they do whatever it is Dean wants to do that day. Dean never says a word before or after these sessions, but during…. During them, Cas is getting a thorough education in the sounds Dean Winchester can make, the ways he gasps at unexpected contact and whimpers after orgasm, the words he uses to describe and encourage pleasure: curses and instructions and words of praise that feed a hunger Cas had never known he had. So Dean speaks during sex all the time, sometimes Cas does, too, but still, they never talk _about_ it. Cas had tried to ask about it that first time, and had considered asking again, but—

_It’s just sex, Cas. Not a word, remember?_

He has his answer. The rules that Dean had laid out for one blowjob so many years ago are still in place, only now instead of a one-sided exchange, they both pay out favors in kind. What was it Crowley had said? _Mutually beneficial arrangement._ That had been one of his euphemisms. _Use each other._ That was the other.

He has to get Crowley out of his head. It’s hard, though, because there is a vein of ironic truth to what he’d said. Cas even knows exactly what Crowley would call his current emotional state: _masochism._

Cas isn’t so delusional as to deny it. Dean’s words aren’t open to interpretation, after all. Dean had been perfectly clear about the nature of their arrangement, and yet Cas can't help but hope anyway. Every day, he hopes: for touch, for words, for feelings. Every day, he takes whatever scraps Dean throws him: little miracles of pleasure, anticipation, ecstasy, maybe a joke, a towel, then goodbye.

It’s one thing to know that someone doesn’t love you, and another altogether to accept that they never will. The barrier of sexuality now set aside, Cas is secure in the knowledge that he isn’t worthy of Dean’s love for other reasons. There’s shame in it, shame in being deemed fuckable and nothing more. It begins to eat at Cas, the weight of all his past mistakes—he never did catch Lucifer, and that was just one of many—making him unworthy, difficult, a wrench in the Winchesters’ plans. Much as he enjoys the sex with Dean—and he very much does—he finds it incredibly emotionally taxing. Every session with Dean serves as a reminder of the feelings Dean doesn’t share. A few times, the hardest times, Dean had kneeled before Cas, and kissed his member gently, held his hips steady, tongued at him delicately and slowly. Those times, Dean’s eyes had watched Cas closely for his reactions, careful to adjust his approach, to make Cas’s pleasure last— that had felt like love. What Cas imagines love to feel like, anyway. He’s never had anyone love him before. Dean’s every touch, every look, serves as a beacon of false hope, saying _maybe—_

Maybe if he were human.

Maybe if he were better.

Maybe if he hadn’t fucked up at every turn.

Cas leaves. He seeks out the angels both as a last-ditch effort to save the world and as a way to prove himself, to earn Dean’s love. It backfires horribly, just like everything else Cas has ever attempted, when, after months of cutting off communication with Dean, of being too overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy to call, the angels send him right back into Dean’s presence. 

Cas is unsurprised by Dean’s anger, by his words in front of Sam. “Welcome back,” Dean says, but he makes it feel like the opposite. Cas feels like he is drowning in shame, and Dean isn't going to be the one to pull him out. Rather, it feels like he’s the one pushing Cas under.

Later, Cas seeks him out in private, looking for some small redemption and doing his best to ignore his true motive. The tape is a good excuse, a thing of Dean’s that had been loaned to Cas for the sake of one trip, its return now long overdue.

“It's a gift,” Dean says in response to Cas’s offering, handing it back. “You keep those.”

“Oh.” Cas takes it. He hadn’t realized. Maybe he isn’t completely cut off from Dean’s friendship, then. But he clearly isn’t wanted, either. He moves to leave.

“Cas, you can’t—“ Dean starts, and Cas stops in the doorway. “With everything that's going on, you can't just go dark like that. We didn't know what happened to you. We were worried. That's not okay.”

“Well, I didn't mean to add to your distress.”

Dean doesn’t respond. He doesn’t understand. Cas breaks.

“I—“ He has to force it out, all of his feelings from the last few months, one word at a time, as if saying it made the failures more real. “Dean, I just keep failing. Again and again. When you were taken, I searched for months and I couldn't find you. And then Kelly escaped on my watch, and I couldn't find her. And I just wanted—I _needed_ to come back here with a win for you. For myself.” Cas searches Dean’s face for forgiveness, but it only gets angrier.

“You think you're the only one rolling snake eyes here? Me and Sam, we had her. We had Kelly and we lost her.” Oh. Maybe that was it. Forgiveness in the knowledge that they were all flawed. Dean had used a similar argument before; _We’re all cursed,_ he’d said.

_I’d rather have you, cursed or not._

Enough. It’s enough. But absolution wasn’t important now. The Winchesters were.

“And if you find her again?” Cas asks, what hope he has remaining resting on this thread, because if Sam and Dean can do the deed, there will be no need to betray them at all.

“Sam's working on it,” says Dean. “Of course, he's hell-bent on finding something that doesn't mean killing her or her kid.”

“Right.” Cas could assume as much. “And if he doesn't find something? If you run out of time—Could either of you kill an innocent?” Cas knows the answer even as he says it.

Dean knows it, too. He can’t even keep eye contact. “We will find a better way.”

 _We._ “You mean, we?” Cas asks. _Me, too?_ Cas barely dares to hope.

“Yes, dumbass. We.” Dean stands. He’s so close; the last time they were so close, they were panting in pleasure. “You, me, and Sam, we're just better together. So now that you're back, let's go, Team Free Will. Let's get it done.” Dean’s words are beautiful, they are exactly what Cas had wanted to hear, but just like that sarcastic _welcome home,_ they sound like the opposite of their meanings. There’s no conviction in them. Maybe Dean could sense it, too, that they weren’t a team any longer.

“I'd like that,” Cas says honestly.

“Great. And I'd like a beer.” Dean replies dismissively, brushing past Cas into the hall. Cas knows that he should let Dean go, that the Colt—if Cas knew Dean, and Cas knew Dean better than he knew anyone else in the world—was most likely in this very room, under Dean's pillow. There was no longer any question of rejoining the Winchesters—Dean had made their position clear. They weren’t willing to do what was necessary, not until they had tried and suffered and bled for all the other options first. Cas couldn’t allow that to happen. And once Cas had killed Kelly Kline and her unborn child, it would be one violation too many. They would never accept him back. Dean would never accept him back.

Cas can’t just leave Dean this way. He needs— something. He needs it to be better.

“The sixth song is my favorite,” he says, loud enough to carry down the hall.

“What?” Dean asks, turning to face him.

There wasn’t a track list on the tape; Cas doesn’t know what it’s called. “Oh to sail away,” he recites, “to sandy lands and other days. Oh to touch the dream, hides inside and never seen.”

Dean shifts his weight, takes a step closer. “Achilles Last Stand.” A strange title. There was no reference to Achilles in the song. “Robert Plant had a broken ankle when he wrote it,” Dean explains. “Had to cancel their tour, was afraid he wouldn’t be able to travel any more.”

“Freedom is fragile,” Cas agrees. “Perhaps we can only truly appreciate what we have, once it’s lost.”

Dean nods tensely, then he turns, checking the hall behind him. That done, he strides back toward Cas, into the bedroom, and Cas steps back— Dean’s body seems to be taking up more space than usual. Dean closes the door slowly behind him until it clicks shut, framing his wide shoulders. There’s a fire in his eyes.

“You know you’re my best friend, Cas.”

“I know.” Cas has to keep talking, has to preemptively earn Dean’s forgiveness— “And you are mine. Dean, you have to understand. There’s nothing I value above your friendship, except your life. I’d do anything for you.”

Dean steps close, and Cas feels a shiver run through his vessel. “Then act like it,” Dean demands.

“I—”

Dean’s hands pull Cas forward hard by the neck. His lips mash hot and hungry against Cas’s. Cas gasps into Dean, too surprised by the sudden onslaught of physicality to be anything other than helpless in Dean’s hands. He accepts Dean’s tongue, his lips, his teeth. Dean starts ripping at Cas’s tie and the rest of his clothing and Cas stands there powerless to even want to stop him.

Then, Dean does something to Cas he’s never done before, not during sex, not when they were in the same room—Dean _prays,_ and not in words but in ideas, in feelings, in graphic images that send fire down Cas’s spine and through his groin. The sensation overwhelms Cas and he moans loudly, with almost no awareness of it. His consciousness is otherwise occupied: Dean’s imagination is running rampant throughout his body, leaving reality no more than a quiet echo beyond.

A moment later, a naked Dean is dragging Cas to the bed and throwing him down onto it. Dean climbs on top of him, prayers so loud, so close, pleading, his mouth wide and desperate on Cas’s. Dean’s need is infectious, flowing through Cas’s grace, and so Cas does the only thing that makes sense: he gives in to Dean’s will.

Cas flips them over and presses Dean flat against the mattress, thrusting roughly against him and biting his neck. “Stay,” he murmurs in Dean’s ear before crawling down and parting his thighs, eliciting a grateful moan from above. Cas lifts Dean’s leg the way he wants it lifted, and bites and licks and kisses Dean in places he wants to be bitten and licked and kissed. He lifts Dean’s torso with one arm to give his mouth more access, and works Dean’s hole with his tongue. Curses fly down at him from above.

“Fuck you, why does that— Fuck, I. Fucking hell. Fuck.”

“Be polite, Dean,” Cas chides, reaching his free hand up and around to bring Dean to full hardness. The fuck yous are soon joined by yeses and thank yous and one very long “Caaaaaaaas” that nearly drives Cas over the edge without even having touched himself.

Dean puckers, and so Cas works his tongue into him— Dean’s prayer had involved more than tongues, but Cas doesn’t think they have the materials for that. This would have to be good enough. He slides himself in and out of Dean, losing momentum with his hand, focused on this one task. Dean shudders above him, curse words trailing off, until finally Cas hears from above a quiet, pleading, “Castiel.” And then, “Please.”

Holy hell. Cas’s hand finds a new, furious rhythm. Cas keeps at it, harder, faster, until, with a note of satisfaction, he makes Dean’s prayer come true. He brings Dean to a loud, gasping climax, back arching on top of Cas’s hand, fingers clinging to the very pillow that Cas suspects conceals his prize.

“Stay there,” Cas says as he releases Dean’s torso to fall back onto the mattress. He takes a moment—one last moment—to stare at Dean, at the way his chest rises and falls, at the trail of cum running from it to his stomach, at his dick, just beginning to slump over, at his parted, panting, perfect lips. A perverse desire takes over Cas’s mind. “Can I—? Open your mouth.”

Dean does so. Cas crawls up to him and kneels by his head, holding his cock next to Dean’s face. Dean’s still flushed; the sheen of sweat on his skin throws his features into relief. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Cas inserts a finger into Dean’s mouth and pulls it open wider. Dean lets him, loose and relaxed after his own pleasure. His breath is hot against Cas’s knuckle. His eyes are inscrutable.

“Can I?” Cas asks again, removing his finger and pumping himself, feeling the closeness of the orgasm, dick twitching in his hand.

After a moment, Dean just closes his eyes and leaves his mouth open, tilting his head back for Cas, his beautiful face vulnerable and free and waiting. What a magnificent gift.

Cas groans in anticipation. He leans over Dean and puts a hand on the wall, remembers the sensation of Dean writhing against his mouth and crying out his name. His hand speeds up on his cock. The momentum builds. He isn’t allowed to tell Dean how beautiful he looks. “Fuck,” Cas curses quietly instead. “Fuck.”

Afterwards, when Cas collapses onto the bed, ready to begin to come down from his orgasm, Dean gets up, cleans himself off at the sink, and gets dressed. He throws Cas’s clothes to him harder than necessary, then mumbles, “I’m gonna get that beer,” and leaves the room before Cas can even start to assemble himself.

Whiplash. Loving Dean was constant whiplash. Cas drops his head back against the pillow and holds his bundle of clothing close, trying to recover. The wake of Dean’s anger still simmers throughout the room, throughout his own bones. So much for making things better, then. Cas had expected the sex to appease Dean, but if anything it seems to have made things even worse. And he still has his betrayal to enact.

Cas brushes against the sheets with his hand, exploring under the pillows, and sure enough: there it is, easy as you please, two bullets in the chamber. Just enough. Cas drops the Colt into the inside pocket of his coat, now growing heavy with his various collected items. He gets dressed and makes the bed before he leaves, managing to slip out without the Winchesters spotting him.

On his way to the truck, Cas puts a hand in the pocket that contains the cassette. His cassette. He likes the song’s title, now that Dean’s explained it. It was apt, for so much of their lives. But Achilles Last Stand hadn’t been the song he’d really wanted to ask about. He’d chickened out at the last second, but the one he’d longed to ask about, been thinking about for months, was Rock and Roll. He wanted to ask about the lyrics, about whether Dean had thought of that song when he’d laid his hands on Cas’s chest and said those words— _It’s been a long time._

Common enough words.

More masochism.

It didn’t matter anyway, anymore, whether Dean loved him or could love him or would ever even consider loving him. Once Kelly Kline was dead, Dean would hate him. It was as simple as that.

At least, Cas thinks to himself as he gets in the truck, he still has the tape to remember him by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean: *runs off to have a panic attack about his sexuality*  
> Cas: oh no he’s so mad at me:/
> 
>  ~~Next up: Dean mourns his one true love!~~ Jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk what am I evil  
> Next up: Cas comes back to life! A happy chapter god bless


	8. s13e05 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas reunite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean is so fucking stupid I hate him
> 
> Warnings: not explicit (references to some sex acts), happy(!), a lot of Dean being dumb of ass<3

They pick Cas up in an alleyway behind some tacky church in Amarillo. His eyes are shining with life, and Dean Winchester, who had believed himself to be broken beyond repair, starts to pick up the pieces of himself. He rushes to Cas, holds him tight and keeps thinking it even after speaking: _Welcome home, welcome home, welcome home._

It’s starting to feel like he’s always throwing himself at Cas, kissing and hugging and welcoming, and Cas always leaves him behind.

Well, not again. Not this time.

It doesn’t matter if Cas can love him. All that matters is that he is back, and this time around, there is no Darkness, no Lucifer, no apocalypse. There is loss, plain and simple, and there is Jack, but Jack at least doesn’t want to kill them all— not yet anyway— and maybe this win would stick. Maybe they’d finally be happy.

They stop to spend the night in a motel in town, but Dean is too thrilled, too ravenous, too goddamn _happy,_ to settle down and sleep. He waits until Sam passes out, then gestures to Cas and walks him to the parking lot.

“What’s wrong, Dean?”

As if something needed to be wrong. Dean leans against Baby and holds a hand out to Cas. Cas takes it and steps forward.

“I missed you, Cas,” Dean says simply, breath fogging in the cold. “I missed you like a motherfucker.”

Cas looks down. Dean thinks he spies a small smile on his face. “I missed you too, Dean.”

Dean draws him closer, raises a hand to his neck, and pulls their mouths flush. Cas’s lips are cold, as if he hasn’t quite adjusted to the world of the living yet. Dean opens his mouth hungrily, capturing Cas’s lips one by one, warming them with his own, sucking them gently. It feels real. God, Cas, he wants to say. I don’t know how to live without you anymore.

Cas pulls away and Dean lets him, not wanting to push his luck. He knows Cas must get less than he does out of their hookups—he’s never initiated one, though he usually seems to enjoy it once Dean gets his vessel going— and Dean’s fine with that, really, so long as Cas indulges him now and then.

So long as Cas reenacts a fucking porno on his face before leaving him high and dry.

Dean shivers.

“Dean,” Cas whispers. “You must be cold.”

“Naw. I’m fine. Just… let’s just stand here, Cas.” He hopes it doesn’t sound like begging. He just wants to be close, to hold Cas in his hands, to confirm he’s alive. Alive. He’s alive.

Cas wraps him in his coat, like Dean’s a college girl who didn’t wear enough layers to the bar crawl. The urge to save his pride loses to the need to be close; Dean lets Cas do what he wants. He stares into Cas’s eyes, so close, blue and innocent and joyful. The last time they’d been this close, Cas had played him with those eyes.

“Cas, when you took the Colt—“

“I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t realize that Jack—”

“No, no. You figured Jack out before we did. I meant, before you took it, we— you played me good.” It comes out accusatory, because it is. And here he is anyway, despite the hurt, wrapped in Cas’s arms. Completely hopeless.

Cas brings a hand up to Dean’s face and brushes his jaw delicately. What must he see, when he looks at Dean. Every molecule of him, Dean imagines. A series of diagrams. Every bad decision he’s ever made.

“I didn’t mean to manipulate you,” Cas whispers. Then, a little contrarily, “You did ask for it.”

Cas had… half a point. Dean had been desperate, horny. He hadn’t seen or heard from Cas in months, and that, combined with the sight of that damn mixtape, not to mention Cas _quoting Zeppelin lyrics to him,_ had made him stupid. He’d pulled Cas onto the bed, not caring that Cas didn’t care, hoping that maybe he might— “Okay, so I started it,” Dean admits. But Cas had done things they’d never done before that night. He’d acted in ways he never had before. He’d put Dean off his guard, rendered him totally helpless. “But I didn’t ask for, you know—“ He can’t even say it.

“I got selfish at the end,” Cas admits. “But you implied that it was acceptable.”

Dean can feel the rush in his cheeks. “No, not that—the, uh—when you—“

“—Dean,” chides Cas, “you prayed for everything else I did that night.”

 _“I—?”_ He hadn’t realized. He’d prayed without meaning to, which meant Cas hadn’t played him at all. His own thoughts had. _Fuck._ He had to stop watching so much fucking porn. He’d practically begged Cas for those things, maybe even more.

Probably more.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Wha— no. Cas.”

“You didn’t like it?”

Dean’s not stupid enough to deny it, not if there’s a possibility of a repeat. “No. I… liked it.” He’d fucking loved it, that was the problem. And not just the stuff gay guys were supposed to like, but even Cas’s so-called ‘selfish’ freaking porno money shot. Dean was pretty sure the receiver wasn’t supposed to enjoy that, but the idea of Cas looking down at him while he waited for Cas to— _Fuck._ And all that right after Dean had come from— _Fucking hell._

The damn flush wouldn’t leave his cheeks. Fucking hopeless. Gay as hell. His pride was buried in a ditch somewhere in Maine. And he’d _begged_ for the worst of it. He’d _made_ Cas do that stuff. It was so fucked up. And a little bit awesome. And Cas was _alive._

Cas’s mouth is close; their breath is making a fog between them. “What’s wrong, then?”

Dean can’t even start on all the layers that were wrong with the situation. “I didn’t know I was praying that at you,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—I dunno. Make you do that.”

“It was my pleasure.” Cas kisses him again but Dean is thoroughly distracted by his words. _My pleasure,_ said with such sincerity not even Dean could deny it. Cas had enjoyed it. Cas hadn’t manipulated him. He hadn’t manipulated Cas. They both just— enjoyed it. That was all. That couldn’t be real. Cas couldn’t be real.

Cas’s lips are warm now and Dean fits his own against them easily, gently. By rights, Cas should be mocking him, or kicking him to the curb, not holding him this way, close and warm and gentle, like a lover instead of a guy he occasionally deigned to fuck.

Liked to fuck? It couldn’t be that easy, could it? Dean wraps his arms around Cas’s waist under the coat, pulling them even closer together. He’s alive. That’s the most important thing.

The other thing is nice, too.

“You prayed to me earlier tonight, as well,” Cas tells him softly. “You welcomed me home.”

Oops. “Does that happen a lot, me brain-paging you without meaning to?” He was going to have to be more careful with his thoughts.

“No, that’s all. Maybe— before you left to fight the Darkness. You asked me to stay alive.”

Huh. “Didn’t follow instructions, did you?”

Cas smiles, small and crooked, a little self-deprecating, a little wry. “No, I suppose not.”

“You gotta stop dying on me, man.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Dean smiles and rubs a hand down Cas’s back. “Good.”

They stand like that for a while longer, until the chill breeze and the cold metal under his ass is too much to take.

“Crash time.” Dean pushes away from the car, and Cas stands aside to let him pass.

“I’ll wait here,” he says. Dean looks back curiously. Cas is smiling beautifully up at the sky. “I want to look at the stars.”

“Okay, bud. See you in the morning.”

“See you then, Dean. Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: TOMBSTONE
> 
> Today's chapter comes with a special bonus feature deleted scene that is far too happy and uncomplicated to actually feature in this work, please enjoy:
> 
> One day, when it’s just the two of them in the library researching, Dean looks up from his book and thinks hard at Cas, _Fuck me._  
>  Across the table, Cas keeps reading quietly.  
> Dean thinks it again, then again, using a different combination of words each time. _Dearest Castiel, he thinks finally, who art sitting before me,_ please _fuck me._  
>  Cas looks up at him suddenly, eyes wide.  
> “Just testing,” he says innocently.  
> Cas’s brow furrows in irritation. “Don’t.”  
> “Disappointed?”  
> “You’re distracting me.”  
> Dean doesn’t get what was different about his last ‘prayer.' He can’t have thought the word please in his unconscious prayers. “You got an angelic spam filter on there or something?” he asks. “I’ve been thinking dirty things in your direction for going on ten minutes now.”  
> Cas gives him an irritated look. “Glad you’ve been keeping busy.”  
> “Yeah, yeah, so what gives?”  
> “Prayers have to be sincere, Dean.”  
> “What, so it didn’t get through until I—“  
> Cas glares at him, then turns back to his book.  
> Huh. Dean raises his eyebrows. “So, how about it?”  
> “No.”  
> “Why not? You seemed kinda interested before—“  
> “You’re experimenting with a gesture of faith. It’s antithetical.”  
> “And since when are you all about blind faith? Huh?” Dean gets up and stands over Cas, leaning his ass against the library table next to Cas’s book. “You know what I think?” He smiles down at his angel. “I think you’re sad, ‘cause once I get a handle on this thing, you’re not gonna have all-inclusive access to those juicy Dean thoughts anymore.”  
> “‘Juicy?’” Cas asks wryly, deigning to look up.  
> Dean tries to pray again; he thinks about what he wants: images and feelings this time.  
> Cas’s eyes turn distant. A breath escapes his lips.  
> “Juicy,” says Dean, winking victoriously as he leaves the room.
> 
> Later, in bed after giving Dean everything he wanted, Cas speaks tentatively.  
> “Dean, I understand that you don’t want to pray unwittingly, but these prayers—I’d rather you didn’t get in the habit of using them this way.”  
> “What, you don’t want me beaming dirty thoughts into your head?”  
> “I’m glad you understand.”  
> Dean doesn’t understand at all.
> 
> /Cas voice: prayer isn’t a booty call, Dean  
> Dean voice: why the fuck not??/


	9. s13e06 (Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas go SHOPPING. Cas gets impatient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tombstone did the best thing ever done in supernatural which is heavily imply a westernwear shopping trip with Dean and Cas are u KIDDING me!! this is my calling this chapter is my magnum opus let’s goooo
> 
> pay attention to Cas in this one, he is Going Through It
> 
> Warnings: explicit, happy and angsty at the same time, more of Dean's dumbass thought process

Sam is in the habit of getting up before sunrise, and Cas is eager to meet Jack, so Dean has to start the obscenely boring drive from Amarillo to Lebanon at an equally obscene and boring hour of the day. It’s worth it in the end, once they get to the bunker and watch Cas and Jack hug each other for the first time. Dean can’t help but notice the wonder in Cas’s eyes as he perceives— well, whatever Jack is. Whatever the hell Cas perceives. There’s a lot of talk, but all Dean hears is that Jack is the one who brought Cas back, and without even trying. They got a win, and for once it was easy. It was free. He’s almost giddy as he packs his bags for Dodge City.

They roll into town and check in at the motel and Dean’s already made plans. This may be Jack’s case, but as far as Dean is concerned, it’s his vacation. It’s starting to get late, so he grabs Cas and sets out with him before the stores close, leaving Sam and Jack to finish setting up in the room.

Dean drives Cas to a big warehouse store that he’d spotted on the way into town. It doesn’t even have a name, just faded red letters emblazoned on the front: BOOTS HATS LEATHER. Cas, well. Cas doesn’t seem thrilled when he sees where they are. But Dean doesn’t care if he has to drag Cas through the place kicking and screaming— they were going to have fun with this, damn it.

The store is fucking awesome— rows and rows of hats and boots, with choices he’d never even thought of: a million different types of colors, embroidery patterns, types of leather.

Cas’s look of exasperation grows deeper and deeper as Dean shops. He just doesn’t understand that it’s a tricky thing, buying a hat and boots. It’s not as if Dean was getting a closet full of them. He was only getting one hat and one pair of boots, so they had to be just the right ones, and they had to match. Dean looks at quite a few. Cas, meanwhile, refuses to so much as try on any of the hats. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he protests roughly when Dean offers him one. Dean rolls his eyes towards the salesman, _City boys, am I right?_ and grabs a cheapo straw one for Cas anyway. There’d be time to wear him down before morning. In the meantime, Cas just follows him and the sales guy around the place like a cranky ghost in a trench coat.

“Who poked a spur up your ass?” Dean asks as he tries on another bolo tie; they’d found the hat and the boots; now he was accessorizing.

“It’s been three hours, Dean.”

Ah. “I guess time flies when you’re having fun, huh?” he asks, shooting Cas a grin.

Cas does not grin back.

“All right, all right. We’ll go soon. How do we feel about this one, though?” Dean asks, frowning at himself in the small mirror on the counter. The tie has more turquoise than he’d consider manly, but the salesman insists that that’s the fashion.

Cas sighs. “The black one suits you better.”

Dean contemplates this in the mirror for a moment. “Well,” he says to the salesman, “you heard the man. Ring us up.”

A few minutes later they leave the store weighted down by paper shopping bags. The sun had set while they were shopping; Jack and Sam must have eaten dinner by now.

“Hey, Cas, I know we’ve been out for a while, but what do you think about grabbing a bite— Where the hell are you going?” Cas is dragging him by the hand, not toward Baby, which is sitting gorgeously in the lot in front of them, but sharply to the right.

Cas doesn’t answer. Dean follows, glancing furtively around, self-conscious of their clenched hands. There doesn’t seem to be anyone nearby; the only light is spilling out of the store’s glass doors or filling the parking lot from street lamps. Cas drags him around the side of the building, into the shadows, and before Dean can ask him what the hell he’s doing, a hand has snaked around his neck, lips are locked on his, and Cas is kissing him within an inch of his life. Dean drops the bags. Cas’s other hand finds Dean’s waist, and Cas is attacking him, pushing him back, and Dean has no choice but to stumble a retreat until his back is against the wall and Cas is pressing into him, the rough plaster scratching painfully at his scalp, Cas’s tongue forcibly keeping him mute.

Fuck. Fucking hell.

Dean manages to tear his face away. “Cas— someone’s gonna see—“

“No, they won’t,” Cas responds calmly, voice a low grumble that makes Dean sigh as Cas returns to kissing him. Cas presses a thigh between Dean’s legs, starts to move against him, and fucking hell. Dean relaxes into it.

 _This is new,_ he thinks to himself. Well, Cas had pinned him to a wall or two before, but he’d never initiated sex. It was always Dean. It was only Dean. Dean was the one who got horny, emotional, bored. Lovesick. And Cas always met him where he was, always, but he never asked for more.

…Until he had. And Dean had let him. So was this normal now? Was Cas going to start assaulting him in every back alley they passed?

“Fuck,” Dean sighs happily as Cas undoes his belt buckle. “Did I tell you I missed you?”

Cas smiles against his neck. “Yes, you did. Dean,” his voice grows huskier, “Dean, there’s no one there, can I—“

 _“Yes,_ Cas, hell.”

Cas gets on his knees, and Dean leans back, relaxing into the rough texture of the wall and closing his eyes. Cas’s mouth envelopes him gently, sending waves of pleasure up into his abdomen, and Dean grips Cas’s head in his hand instinctively. God, he feels good. Warm and familiar and comfortable.

“That’s so good, Cas. So good.” Dean murmurs. He lets the pleasure flow, lets Cas do whatever he wants with him. In his mind, they’re on a ranch that they own together, and he’s pushed up against the wall of their barn after feeding the horses. In his mind, this is nothing special; this happens every day. In his mind, they are in love.

It doesn’t take him long to come, gasping quietly into the night, grip tightening in Cas’s hair, back sinking a little lower against the wall as his hips shudder forward. He holds onto Cas as he comes back to reality.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, hoping he didn’t choke Cas.

Cas shakes his head dismissively. He gives Dean a minute to breathe, then zips him up and stands. Dean pulls him close and kisses him gently. He can taste the bitter salt of himself on Cas’s tongue, now shared between them as they kiss into each other, deeper and deeper. Dean lets his hands wander down Cas’s back, pulling their waists flush. Cas groans quietly at the contact. He’s rock hard. Dean smiles. He’s having the best 24 hours of his life.

“Were you a little frustrated today, baby?”

A shiver of panic. The word, a leftover from his fantasy, had slipped out before Dean could bite it back, but Cas doesn’t recoil. He just growls affirmation against Dean’s lips. As if he likes it. Hell.

“I got you,” Dean whispers, turning them so that Cas’s back is to the wall now. “I got you, baby.” He kisses Cas, then kneels before him on the dirty ground, next to their forgotten shopping bags. He can hear the rush of cars on the road, the buzz of an air conditioner somewhere nearby. The grit of the ground digs painfully into his knees.

It’s been years since Dean’s blown a guy in a dark alley. There’s a near-forgotten part of him that expects this to feel like that, that expects something quick and dirty and yes, ok, _fun,_ if not for the feeling of shame that came with it. It had always clung to him afterwards, for days, weeks, years, even; like the smell of cigarette smoke, impossible to wash clean.

Cas’s hand finds Dean’s cheek, and Dean looks up into Cas’s eyes, dark and vast and unknowable. What did he see.

Dean’s heartbeat begins to slow. Cas didn’t care about turning tricks. Cas didn’t find any of this shameful. Cas was more than that. Cas was eyes like the sky: perfect blue in the sun and glittering black at night. Cas was light and sound and sanity. Cas was the universe.

Dean keeps the eye contact like a precious talisman as he undoes Cas’s belt and zipper. He keeps it as he handles Cas’s dick gently and as he makes Cas sigh above him, as he teases Cas’s tip with a kiss, as he licks salty precome from his own lips in anticipation.

“Dean,” Cas whispers into the night, his thumb brushing Dean’s cheek. There’s desire in Cas’s low voice, in his black eyes.

“Yes, baby?” Dean’s unlocked some wild demon inside of himself with that word; it keeps falling out of his mouth now, but he doesn’t want to put it away. It feels so good to pretend. If Cas doesn’t mind, then he won’t, either.

“Nothing, I—nothing.”

Cas’s thumb wanders to Dean’s lips, and Dean’s mouth opens at his touch, his tongue sliding forward for a taste. Cas pulls him closer and Dean swallows him down obediently, thinking maybe this isn’t so far from love, after all. If Cas wanted him, this wasn’t so bad. If Cas wanted him, this was almost— almost what he wanted. Dean rarely gets so much.

He takes Cas as deep as he can, gags a little and lets back up. Dean loves the feel of Cas in his mouth, loves the lack of ambiguity to it. He loves knowing that Cas is aroused by him; even more so, he loves knowing that Cas _initiated_ this, that Cas wants more than just passive chances at pleasure whenever Dean decided to dole them out. Cas had thought about this, _planned_ this. Cas had been thinking about him, as they were going through their daily life, shopping for clothes.

Just for a moment, Cas’s mind isn’t so mysterious. Cas’s desire is clear.

Dean bobs around Cas, sucks gently, feels him hit the back of his mouth. He can hear Cas breathing roughly above him, and he times his movements to that metronome, slowly sucking gasps and moans from his angel until Cas speaks again, frustrated now, wheedling. “Deaaan.” Dean hums around him, which shuts him up; humming always made Cas groan. It’s too loud, in the open, but Dean doesn’t mind. It’s been so long since he’s heard that sound, since he’s heard Cas lose control and just _feel._ Then Dean speeds up, and so does Cas’s breathing; he’s whispering Dean’s name breathily, eagerly, little ‘pleases’ punctuating the ‘Deans’ and then he gasps sharply and his dick pulses on Dean’s tongue. His hand tightens, petting Dean’s head as he rides it out, and then releases him to drop back against the wall.

Dean swallows and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He gets up to find himself level with Cas’s panting face, and despite himself _(don’t make this more than it is),_ Dean leans in and kisses him gently on the cheek. And, well, so what if he kisses Cas on the mouth, too? He’s given the game away in so many little ways already. Cas grabs his neck and holds him there a moment, humming into his lips contentedly, and hell. Dean is in love. He’s only ever fallen deeper in love with Cas. They’re kissing gently, sweetly, _—Cas likes kissing him—_ and despite the muck on the knees of his jeans, Dean doesn’t feel dirty at all.

“What got into you today?” Dean asks in wonder, running a hand through Cas’s hair and staring him in his gorgeous blue eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’ve never seen you so horny, man.”

Cas hums in response, squinting and reaching up to lay Dean’s collar flat. “Maybe suffering three and a half hours of you trying on ridiculous clothing had a beguiling effect on me.”

“Cowboys are sexy,” Dean says defensively.

Cas gives him a rueful smile. He finishes messing with Dean’s shirt and drops his hands to his sides. He sighs. “I just…. We didn’t have any privacy last night, or today. We aren’t going to have any tonight. And, even before I died…. It’s been a long time,” Cas finishes weakly, looking at Dean with something like caution in his eyes.

Dean smiles, taking Cas’s hands in his. “That’s a terrible line.”

“It’s not so bad.” Cas looks away. He seems almost shy, this celestially powerful being that had just sucked Dean off behind a boots & leather warehouse after being brought back to life by the spawn of Satan. Nothing was making any sense, but for once it seemed to be in Dean’s favor. Cas closes his hands around Dean’s, squeezing each one tight. “Dean, in the Empty, before Jack woke me, I— I dreamt of my regrets. Of Jimmy, mostly, and all of Claire’s family. But also the Leviathans. And so many angels.” Cas looks up toward Heaven, his face drawn, heavy lines worn from his tear ducts down and across his cheeks. “I know that perfection is impossible, that I’ll continue to make mistakes. And most of my past is out of reach now, but, there are some regrets— there are some regrets that I can still rectify. Only, when I stare them in the face—” he looks at Dean—“I worry that to resolve one regret is to forge another.”

Dean wants to ask what the hell Cas is talking about, but they are interrupted by an insistent gurgle from his stomach. Cas eyes him.

“I’ve kept you from your dinner.”

“No, Cas, it’s not—“

“We should go.” Before Dean can stop him, he’s unhooked their hands and picked up the shopping bags. Dean follows behind, wondering what it can be that Cas was trying to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: I attempt hurt/comfort
> 
> please comment if you have ever been dragged through one of these giant boot stores for HOURS by a man who worships cowboys I cannot be the only one who has suffered
> 
> ps can you imagine being a salesman and these two married home of sexuals walk into your store and one of them is LARPing as a country boy who plans to LARP as a cowboy and the other one is just Done with everything. I, too, would keep the store open late and grift them for all they were worth.
> 
> pps can u believe that in the CW’s Supernatural Cas really died and came back to life without any character development from the experience? But then again why should he be different than any other character


End file.
